


The Best Bad Ideas

by copperbadge



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Costume Kink, Crossover, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Snipers, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint Barton put on the Captain America costume for a mission, he didn't count on Phil Coulson's reaction. Coulson didn't count on Clint crashing his new team to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was semi-inspired by a throwaway line in [I Shall Not Want Honour In Heaven](http://archiveofourown.org/works/892977) where Fury is considering putting Clint Barton in the Cap costume before Steve is found. It turned into a terrifying romantic comedy with telepaths. I can't explain it. Also, because it's a bit of a mashup, I ignored the "there are no telepaths/kinetics in AoSverse" thing. 
> 
> Thanks to Knotta and Gypsy for giving it a look-over. 
> 
> **Warnings:** While I wouldn't actually warn for consent issues on this one, the whole thing is a little heightened by how concerned with consent/coercion Coulson is, so tread cautiously. Also warning for kidnapping. It's a very strange story.

"I have an idea," Clint said. 

The terrorists had been yelling for two hours about Captain America by the time he said it. For those two hours, SHIELD had been prepping a special incursion squad and bargaining for time to find Captain America. The problem was that Captain America had gone camping somewhere in the southwest, and four states is a large area to search. Tony _had_ put a tracker on his bike, but apparently Cap found it somewhere west of Dallas and destroyed it. 

Sitwell was given to understand that Steve had been having some issues.

He'd come if he could, Sitwell was positive of that; Steve liked his privacy but he'd never abandon the shield or turn his back on a mission with civilian lives at stake. Before he left, he spoke to the others about filling in for him, because he'd be out of contact.

Nobody imagined that he'd be needed, not with half a dozen other superheroes around, but then a group of home-brewed terrorists took over the Lincoln Monument and started threatening a whole lot of death unless Cap showed up. Why they wanted Captain America had not yet been made clear, despite Sitwell's best attempts to get something coherent out of them. A statement, a manifesto, crayon on a paper bag, something. He suspected they were high, or at least their mouthpiece was.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Am I going to like this idea?" he asked Clint.

"Are you enjoying not having _any_ ideas?" Clint asked back. "Because the brain trust over there -- " he waved to Banner and Stark, who had their heads together but were not exactly experts in defusing tense situations, " -- is coming up empty when it comes to finding Cap, nobody wants Tony Stark doing hostage negotiations, and the DC police are looking a little trigger-happy."

"Point," Sitwell said. "Share."

"We send in a double. Hear me out," Clint said, before Sitwell could object. "We have access to a plausible non-civilian double who's familiar with Steve and has a reasonable level of skill with the shield. We slap the spare uniform on him, throw a decoy shield on his back, and send him in. The whole point of the cowl is to protect his identity anyway."

"Who exactly are you thinking has the physique of Captain America and the ability to pull off that attitude?" Sitwell asked. 

Clint lifted his chin. It was a regal gesture, eyes gazing into the distance, spine straightening a little, muscles flexing. Slowly, majestically, he saluted.

Sitwell rubbed his eyes. 

"I'm not that much smaller, except in the chest, and his uniform's pretty tight. If I can get a reliable prop shield, I can end this," Clint said. "Send me in, come on. Worst case scenario, they take me hostage too and you've got a guy on the inside." 

Sitwell made a call. It might have been a terrible call, but you never knew. 

"You have half an hour to get a suit and shield," he said. "If you aren't suited up by then, I'm sending the incursion team in."

"I'm on it," Clint said. He jogged off, phone to his ear. Sitwell called the negotiator over.

"Tell them we've got Captain America on the way," he said. "He'll be here in half an hour."

"You found him?" the negotiator asked, obviously relieved.

"Yes," Sitwell lied. "We definitely found him."

***

Clint, with the resources of a seasoned SHIELD agent, managed to get his hands on Cap's spare uniform and a realistic-looking shield in a little under 29 minutes. Even Sitwell was sort of impressed. And he did look the part, strutting towards the mobile HQ, cowl snug over his head, jaw squared. 

"Where's the belt?" Sitwell asked. He'd helped Coulson design the uniform, and the utility belt had been a bone of contention. Sitwell wasn't fond of pouches. 

"Gesture of trust," Clint said, his voice a little deeper than normal, or at least it seemed that way. "Nowhere to hide any weapons, this way. Tony, you got that earwig for me?"

"This is creepy, like dressing up as your mom for Halloween," Stark said, producing a tiny device and pulling back the cowl's ear-guard to insert it with tweezers. "Which I haven't done, by the way, that's not a personal anecdote. I knew a guy at boarding school."

"Will they be able to detect this?" Sitwell asked.

"Not unless they work for Stark Industries, and I'm pretty sure we screen rigorously for Crazy Fundamentalist Off-Gridders," Stark replied. 

"How do I look?" Clint asked, facing front.

"Convincing," Sitwell said. 

***

After the Avengers found out about Phil Coulson's mysterious and miraculous revival, and after that particular temper tantrum blew over, Coulson sat down with Sitwell and Hill and established a Handler protocol for the Avengers. Hill or Sitwell could supervise the Avengers in the field or handle cleanup; Sitwell generally did because Hill was higher up the food chain and didn't have to if she didn't want to (and she definitely didn't want to). But if the Avengers _were_ actively being fielded, Coulson was to be notified, and joining them in the field was to take precedence over any of his own non-emergency responsibilities. 

He arrived at mobile HQ about forty minutes after Clint went in as Cap, and he hadn't been briefed. Sitwell realized that either he was going to have to get off the radio and do it, or he'd have to let Tony Stark do it, and he didn't want to be responsible for any murdered billionaires today. Besides, Bruce and the hostage negotiator were both on the line helping Clint talk down a very strung-out militia leader who had been positive Captain America would join their fight once he heard their party line. 

Given their party line was two-fifths fertilizer bombs to three-fifths "a return to the conservative values of your time, Captain, when people knew their place," Sitwell doubted strongly that Steve Rogers would have approved. Clint Barton certainly didn't, but he was keeping his cool. 

"He's in character," Natasha said, sitting next to him with a headphone held to one ear. "If he'd gone in as Clint he'd already be swinging. He's asking what Steve would do and doing it. I think he has some kind of plan."

That was when Sitwell had looked up and seen Phil Coulson climbing out of a SHIELD car, heading for their table. He got up and intercepted him before anyone else could, leaving Natasha to ride herd on the others.

"Who's in the field?" Coulson asked. "What is the field, exactly? Nobody briefed me, but it's not like I don't get television on the Bus. Did they seriously think they were going to hold the Lincoln Monument?"

"They're a little crazy. You come far?"

"Rhode Island. Not important. What can I do?"

"We've only got Clint out there right now."

Coulson's lips thinned. "You have Clint in a blind over the Lincoln Monument?"

"No, he's in with the terrorists."

"You sent _Clint Barton_ in as a hostage negotiator?"

"Not...quite," Sitwell said tactfully, and was going to explain, he really was, when there was a loud boom, and a cloud of smoke emerged from the Monument. A faint rolling shockwave blew past them, and both men took off running. 

***

Phil Coulson had already had a long day by the time the Avengers priority alert came through, and he left his team in Rhode Island to do clean-up under May's watchful eye while he took a Quinjet back to DC. He was tired, and he wasn't prepared for explosives. 

Well, he was always _prepared_ for explosives, of course, but not specifically prepared for this particular one. 

He and Sitwell, with hard-coded instincts, both took off in the direction of the dust cloud as soon as they pinpointed it. There were others running in the opposite direction, lit by floodlights on the scopes of a SHIELD incursion team. Phil let the team deal with them, because they knew the bad guys from the good guys; he was headed towards the Monument. One of the team threw him a respirator as he passed, and he pulled it on; Sitwell was doing the same. Natasha, already wearing one, passed them easily. 

About ten feet into the worst of the smoke, Captain America emerged, carrying a kid on either arm. 

"There's two more wounded, one child, one adult," he called, shoving a kid each at Phil and Sitwell. His voice sounded strange, and wasn't Steve supposed to be camping? "I'll get them out. Everyone else is a bad guy, feel free to shoot at whoever isn't me." 

Phil ripped off his respirator and tossed it to him, then headed back towards HQ with the kid. He was setting the boy down and allowing emergency services to swoop in when he realized what he'd just seen. He was coughing too hard to ask, but when his throat cleared a little he turned back to the expanding dust cloud and saw -- 

Clint Barton was struggling out of the smoke, dressed in Captain America's uniform, Cap's shield on his back, a child in his arms and a woman with one arm slung over his shoulders, limping out with his support. It had to be Clint; he recognized him under the cowl and respirator, and only Clint would be damn fool enough to dress up like Captain America and face down a surly crowd of terrorists. 

Well, Steve would too, but Steve actually _was_ Captain America, that was a different category of damn-fool. 

Clint let paramedics take the woman from his shoulder and the child from his arms, pulled off the respirator mask, then turned and looked back, as if deciding whether he should go back in. The twist of his body was pure Steve; with a startle, Phil realized Clint was in-character. 

A spike of consuming and wholly inappropriate lust ripped through him for a split second. It wasn't unfamiliar; attraction was just something that happened around Clint, regardless of time or place. The intense surge of it was a little surprising, but then it was the man he'd been inappropriately attracted to for years dressed in the costume -- in the character -- of Phil's childhood hero and first crush object. 

It took his breath away for a second.

"Remember to blink," Sitwell murmured to him as he passed. Phil startled and reminded himself that he was a professional; someone had just partially blown up the Lincoln Monument.

"Barton!" he barked. Clint turned back. "Brief the incursion team."

"Done!" Clint replied, and just like that, the Cap-persona fell away and he was Clint in Cap's uniform, which did not really make it better. "The civilians are out, anyone left in the Monument is definitely evil and possibly dead." 

"Good, then get over here," Phil said, and Clint jogged over. 

"Good to see you, sir, where ya been?" he asked, as Phil picked up a first-aid kit from the mobile HQ shelving and unpacked it. 

"I could ask the same. Nice costume."

"Thanks, I know the guy who designed it," Clint said with a smirk, pulling the cowl back. He had abrasions on his neck and left cheek; Phil set about cleaning them with alcohol. "Little tight in the general pelvic area, boss." He cocked his head as if listening to something. "Iron Man's in the Monument helping stabilize it. Shouldn't be any major structural damage."

"What happened?"

"Someone set us up the bomb," Clint informed him soberly.

"You are unforgivable," Phil said, dabbing at his cheek with a swab. 

"They had the bombs on one side of the building and the civs on the other. Didn't take a rocket scientist to see that if I could set off one of the bombs, the hostages could run."

"Oh, just one, huh?"

"Part of one. I am not unfamiliar with the workings of a fertilizer bomb," Clint said. "It's amazing what people will let you do when you wear the white star, by the way. If I were Steve I'd be getting away with murder left and right. I was like, hey, can I get a closer look at this bomb? and they were all, sure Cap, whatever you want. I did a little rewiring, set a fuse…" he shrugged unapologetically.

"Well, it has the advantage of novelty," Phil said, fixing butterfly bandages to the worst of the cuts. Clint, with the slightly dilated pupils of someone still in the throes of an adrenaline rush, was watching him closely. Phil carefully wiped the dust away from under his eyes, where the Cap cowl hadn't protected him. 

"Nice to see you, sir. If I knew all it took was nearly getting blown up, we'd do it more often," Clint said. 

"I'm around."

"You're not, really," Clint replied. "I know, you have your team and whatever, mid-life crisis, finding yourself, blah blah -- "

" _Finding myself?_ Who said -- "

" -- but we miss you. We only ever see you when something's blowing up." Clint cocked his head again. "Tony says he doesn't miss you, but he's a liar." 

Phil leaned back against the table. "Trust me, a SHIELD investigation team, especially this SHIELD investigation team, is definitely not where anyone goes to find themselves. We all have jobs outside of the Initiative, or we'd just sit around all day watching the rest of you do sit-ups and sharpen your knives." 

"Sure," Clint said easily, but he looked a little dubious. "Anyway, are we done? I should probably head back in and look heroic as long as I'm in the uniform."

"You always look heroic," Phil said. That got a more genuine smile. "Keep out of the media, though. Someone's going to notice Cap's jawline changed, even with the cowl up."

"Gotcha. Hey, were those kids okay?"

"They're fine, paramedics have them." 

"Great. Seeya round, boss," Clint said, and pulled the cowl up, tugging the respirator mask back on as he ran back towards the monument. 

***

By the time the Avengers and their attendant agents were done at the site, Steve Rogers had been located; he called just as they were disembarking on the Helicarrier for a debrief.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I had no idea something like this would happen. Why would they want me?"

Phil tamped down on the obvious reply. "Well, deranged people do strange things."

"Tell Clint how sorry I am."

"Captain America is upset you dressed up like him," Phil said to Clint. 

"Tell him how sorry I am the crotch of his uniform tells everyone what religion he is," Clint replied.

"He says it's fine," Phil said into the phone. 

"I can come back, if you think I should. I was going to reach my pickup point tomorrow anyway."

"Right now, there's no need. Finish your hike."

"Are you sure?"

"Steve," Phil said gently. "You took the trip for a reason."

"Yeah, but -- "

"Is it helping?"

"Well, it was, up until I found out someone wants to murder a bunch of people in my name." 

"Hey, hang on," Clint said, and plucked Phil's phone out of his hand. "Steve, hold on a second," he said, and then held the phone up, opening the camera feature. "Smile!"

Before Phil could do more than glance at Clint, there was a flash and the photo came up. Clint yanked the phone away, tapped with both thumbs, and then put the phone to his ear. "Sent you a photo. I make an awesome you. How you doing?"

Phil listened as they walked; Clint mostly made sympathetic noises and said, "No, I get it. Nah, man, I got it covered. I make this look hot. Uh huh. Okay, handing you back to Phil."

"Sorry about that," Phil said into the phone.

"Don't be. Clint's a good fella to have in a pinch. Listen, they're giving me this little doodad for my phone, so if you do need me, you can call me now."

"I'll bear that in mind. Convey my thanks to the agents who found you."

"Will do. See you in the funnies."

Phil smiled and hung up. 

He switched his phone off for the debrief; anyone who could possibly need him either was in the debriefing room or would call the SHIELD switchboard first. Though admittedly he found it hard to pay attention to the play-by-play because Clint was still wearing the goddamned uniform.

"Agent Coulson," the lead agent called, and Phil looked up from his silent contemplation of his own heinous folly and personal misfortune. 

"I arrived late," he said, answering a half-listened-to question. "Agent Sitwell was briefing me on Agent Barton's…"

"Incursion," Sitwell said.

"Incursion? Was it more of an undercover mission?" Phil asked. This, at least, was familiar; he and Sitwell had mastered the art of the Abbot and Costello Debrief a long time ago. It always broke the tension; people stopped worrying they were going to be dressed down for any mistakes and started loosening up a little. 

"Well, I mean, you might as well call it trick-or-treating," Sitwell said.

"He did have a uniform ready suspiciously fast, I understand."

"I wouldn't say suspiciously."

"Distressingly?"

"Yes, I'd say distressingly," Sitwell agreed. 

"I am sitting right here," Clint announced.

"And you look very fetching," Natasha said. Phil almost bit through his tongue. "Brings out your eyes."

"It's the giant A," Clint remarked. 

"I don't know," Sitwell mused. "I think maybe the little wings really pull the whole thing together -- " 

"At any rate, are we calling it an incursion? Infiltration?" Phil said, trying desperately to get back on track now. 

"Let's call it a field action," Clint said loudly.

"Agent Sitwell was briefing me on Agent Barton's field action when we witnessed an explosion from the site," Coulson said. "We ran towards the site, along with the incursion team. About -- twenty yards?"

"About that," Sitwell agreed. 

" -- twenty yards from mobile HQ, we encountered Agent Barton carrying civilians from the site. We intercepted, and I provided him with my respirator. He went back towards the bomb site. We returned to mobile HQ and surrendered the civilians to medical. Agent Barton joined us with two more civilians, and after surrendering them to medical I provided him with emergency first aid." Phil gave a half-shrug. "Not much action from me, I'm afraid. I miss all the good stuff when I'm in Rhode Island." 

"All right, we'll debrief the incursion team separately, and we have Iron Man and Dr. Banner incoming. You're free to go." 

Clint caught up to Phil in the hallway outside the debriefing room. "Hey, can you do me a huge favor, boss?"

"I think you get a free pass on favors for the rest of the day," Phil replied.

"I gotta get out of this monkey suit before I head back down. Can you rustle up some civs for me?" Clint looked pleading. "I'll be in the locker room on deck H."

"Of course. I'll meet you there," Phil replied evenly. "Watch the bandages when you wash."

"Ain't my first rodeo," Clint said with smile and a mock-salute. He walked off, the Captain America uniform trousers just as snug on him as they regularly were on Steve. 

***

Clint would have enjoyed a longer shower if the Helicarrier's hot water supply didn't suck; as it was, he turned on the water as hot as it would go, got under for as long as it stayed that way, and then hastily scrubbed off the last of the soap and got out just as it was turning from lukewarm to chilly. Being clean alone made him feel about a million times better; the bomb hadn't precisely touched him, but the blast had thrown him off his feet for a minute, and bruises always felt worse when you were covered in grime. 

Though it had been fun to swap costumes for a little while, he reflected as he dried off. There was something about putting on the stars and stripes that made you swagger a little, stand a little taller, feel like a better person than maybe you were. Being Captain America for a day had its perks. 

He reached his locker and found a set of SHIELD fatigues on the bench in front of it; the uniform was folded up in the concave of the fake shield. No Coulson. Well, Coulson did like to be discreet.

He bundled up the uniform and shield under one arm and went looking for a ride home; he found it in the quinjet hangar, where Tony was doing preflight for the Iron Man armor, Natasha was watching him like a cat with a particularly amusing mouse, and Bruce was looking like he'd rather chop off a hand than ride shotgun on the armor again. They'd all done it at one time or another, but Bruce got vertigo pretty easily. Ironic, when you thought about it. 

"Clint, please say you're flying down," Bruce called, when he saw Clint approaching.

"Please say you kept the uniform," Tony added. "Shit-hot, Captain Assmerica."

"You're a creep, Stark," Clint informed him.

"You act like this wasn't evident," Tony replied. 

"Keeps you humble," Natasha said, following Clint as he tossed the uniform and shield in the back of a Quinjet. 

"It's not ego if you can back it up," Tony said. "Hey, did Agent Agent bolt or what?" 

"He's got a team," Clint said with a shrug, though he had to admit he was a little stung. He and Natasha had been Coulson's team first, and the Avengers had been his second team, and Clint didn't even know who half the punks on this new team were. He didn't much care for sharing. "Come on, let's get back to the tower, I'm starved." 

One of these days he was going to find something that would actually impress that man. On the day he did, he'd probably be in real trouble. 

***

They'd finished cleanup in Rhode Island by the time Melinda got the text that Coulson was done with his Avengers business. She texted back that he might as well hold on the Carrier; they would be en route themselves within a few minutes. 

He took a while responding. 

_Good. Park the Bus at ground HQ and put everyone on a two-day leave. We're owed down time. Meet airstrip 1300 on Monday, barring emergencies._

Melinda looked at the message, said "Huh," in a thoughtful voice, and then finished her preflight checks. She tuned into the mics in the main cabin in time to hear Simmons say, " -- think he's dreamy."

"You aren't even American," Fitz said. 

"You don't have to be American to appreciate Captain America," Simmons replied. "Oh, I just want to sequence his DNA…"

"That's...kinky," Skye observed. 

"He's the only successful super-soldier! I want to see everything that makes him tick," Simmons said. 

"He's not that great," Ward put in. Melinda smiled to herself. 

"Have you met him?" Skye asked.

"No, but -- "

"So how do you know he's not that great?"

"It's not like he worked for it," Ward said. "I mean, you know, I'm sure he works _with_ it, but he didn't earn that body. It came out of a bottle."

"Wow," Skye said. Melinda mouthed it along with her. "Envious much? I mean, I'm as anti-establishment as they come and I still get a little, you know, a little stir of something for Captain America."

"I'm just saying, I have more respect for agents like Romanoff and Barton. You want the real pinnacle of human perfection? Clint Barton. Guy's got guns like, out to here, and it's all him."

"Your crush is adorable, but I'll stick with the amazing miracle of modern science," Simmons said. 

"It's not a crush!" Ward protested.

"Coulson collects Captain America memorabilia," Fitz said. 

"Coulson collects tons of old stuff," Skye pointed out. 

"No, but Captain America is special, like. I heard from Agent Dandachi who heard it from Agent Smith -- the tall one, you know, not the one with the hair," he said, clearly to Simmons, who made an agreeing noise. "He was in California and he bought this old Captain America poster in a shop as a joke, right, and when Coulson heard he offered him twice what he'd paid for it. Apparently he's got a whole bunch of old posters and cards and such. I wouldn't tell Coulson you think Captain America's not so great." 

"If you're nice he might set you up with Agent Barton, though," Simmons said, and everyone snickered over Ward's protests. 

Melinda smiled and flew onward, towards New York and the intriguing new mystery of Phil Coulson's sudden two-day pass. She took out her phone once they were cruising easily and sent an email.

_Poker night tomorrow night, your place. I'll bring snacks and questions._

The reply came back almost immediately.

_I'll bring drinks and gossip!_

***

Natasha Romanoff and Melinda May had long since been banned from most standard SHIELD floating poker games. It wasn't that they were women (actually Melinda was pretty sure that was a part of it) and it wasn't that they were at a higher security level than most of SHIELD. It was that it just wasn't fair to their opponents. 

There was no official buy-in for the Romanoff-May poker game, though a few fools had asked (some of them clearly assuming "poker game" was code for "athletic lesbian sex"). The standard response was that the buy-in required the body of one of SHIELD's enemies and a pair of Fury's underwear taken without his knowledge. Both should still be warm. 

In reality, admission to the game was invite-based, but everyone invited knew how to be discreet: Clint Barton, Maria Hill, Jimmy Woo, James Rhodes, a few others. A select elite who could actually keep up. 

Which was why Melinda was a little surprised when she arrived at Natasha's snug apartment in Brooklyn to find two strangers there. She'd been expecting Clint, and probably Jimmy. 

"Steve Rogers, ma'am," one man said, unfolding from a chair and offering her his hand. He was deeply tanned, with a shock of gold blond hair, a perfect white-toothed smile, and an astonishing waist-to-shoulder ratio. She could see why Coulson had a thing.

"Melinda May," she replied. "Pleasure to meet you."

"And you, ma'am. I hear great things about you on the SHIELD grapevine. I understand you're Agent Coulson's second in command."

"Well, I drive the Bus," she said with a smile. He matched it, looking a little like a giant twelve year old who was just happy to be in the club. 

"This is Dr. Bruce Banner," Steve added, as the other man came forward to greet her. "He's a friend."

"He's an Avenger," Melinda said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Banner."

"Told you she'd have clearance," Banner said to Steve. "It's a pleasure, Agent May. Which is not something I often say to SHIELD agents."

"Noted," she replied, as Natasha brought her a cocktail and smiled hello. "I assume this is more than just a poker night at this point." 

"We have a Coulson problem to address," Natasha said, tossing an unopened pack of cards down on her poker table. "No reason not to bet as we go, though."

"Is it really fair to these two?" Melinda asked. 

"Oh, I think you'll find they can keep up," Natasha replied. "But take a handicap if you feel like it." 

"I suppose it's not too indiscreet to ask how Agent Coulson's doing," Steve said as he seated himself. Melinda cracked the pack of cards and began shuffling. 

"He's all right. Handling his new team well," she answered. 

"His old team misses him," Banner put in. 

"Agent Coulson has...a certain charisma," she said carefully. "The people under his supervision tend to be very loyal." 

"And somewhat conspiratorial," Banner replied. Melinda tilted her head. "That is why you're here, isn't it? It's why we're here." 

"I have concerns," she said. 

"About?" Natasha asked. 

"Coulson calling a two-day leave for his team directly after pulling Avengers field duty. I know what I've seen on the news, but the file is unusually highly classified," Melinda continued. "I need to know if something happened in the field that his team should be aware of."

"We are his team," Steve said. 

"You are one of his teams," she replied, letting a little edge creep in. 

Steve glanced at Natasha, who nodded. He took his phone out of his pocket and flicked it on, unlocking it and setting it on the table. There was an image on the screen, of Captain America taking a selfie. Coulson was in the frame, head turned to look at him, something difficult but obvious on his face. 

"That's not me," Steve said, pointing to Captain America. 

"Who is it?"

"Barton, in my spare uniform."

She blinked at him. " _Why?_ "

"That's a long story from a classified file," Natasha said. "I'll read you in later."

"I'm a little perplexed about what to do with it," Steve admitted. 

Melinda lifted the phone, studying the photo. She could see Barton's jawline now, looking closely, and the way the costume didn't fit quite like it should. 

It was Coulson's face that was arresting, though, turned to look at Barton. Barton had an arm around his shoulders and was pulling him into the photo, and the expression on Coulson's face was foreign to her, at least coming from him. Fond affection, barely harnessed restraint, badly hidden regret. The face of a man in love and trying desperately to hide it. 

"I actually am Captain America, and he never looks at me like that when I'm in uniform," Steve said quietly. "I don't think Clint noticed when he took the picture, but he wants me to send him a copy and I'm not really…" his face contorted. "It's very awkward." 

"I'm not sure how this explains the recent leave," Natasha said. "It's been going on a long time. But I imagine there's some connection." 

"Coulson and Barton?" Melinda asked, a little surprised. "I've never seen any evidence of it before."

"He's very good at concealing it," Natasha said. "Plus Clint's a little tone-deaf when it comes to these things." 

"Nobody is tone-deaf enough to miss this," Steve said. " _I'm_ seeing it and I haven't had a date in seventy years." 

"Why bother?" Banner asked. "Hiding it, I mean."

"Clint's his subordinate officer," Melinda said. "It's not exactly code." 

"The point is," Natasha said, "Clearly this is going to upset the status quo if Steve sends Clint the photo. On the other hand, there's something to be said for honesty. I don't think…" she glanced at Melinda. "I don't think Coulson's actually very happy right now. Personally."

"He's struggling," she said quietly.

"Clint could be good for him. Or, if he wasn't interested, he could be very bad for him," Natasha said. 

"You don't know?" Banner asked. "Don't you specialize in knowing this kind of thing?"

"About ordinary people, yes. Neither of these two are ordinary." 

Steve made a noise. They'd been playing five card stud while they spoke, hitting, calling, raising without bothering to vocalize any of it, and Bruce had just bluffed Steve to pieces. Bruce gave him a grin. 

"So do I send it or what?" Steve asked, as Bruce collected his winnings. "I don't like lying, but I like stirring things up even less, if it's to no good purpose." 

"I think you should send it," Melinda said. "And let me know when you do, so I can have some small arms ready. Just in case."

" _Small arms?_ " Steve asked.

"It's Clint Barton and Phil Coulson. Even if it ends happily, there may be shots fired," Natasha said. 

***

_Sorry, took me a while to find it. Here ya go,_ read the text message, when Clint's phone beeped at six in the morning. Clint, at the tail end of an early-morning run, slowed to cool-down pace and flicked open the message screen from Steve. The little thumbnail of the photo popped up underneath the text. 

He smiled; Steve picked up the twenty-first century fast, but he still sometimes had trouble visualizing the way computers worked -- icon to program to content could elude him if it got complicated enough. It was like him to randomly lose photos. 

Still, he finally had the photo, which was what mattered. Should have sent it to himself when he sent it to Steve, but the elation of a good mission and the approving look on Coulson's face, combined with the excitement of wearing the uniform, had all gone to his head a little. On the one hand, the fact that SHIELD had blithely substituted one man for another in the Cap uniform was classified -- that kind of thing couldn't get out, for PR purposes and a myriad of other reasons as well -- but on the other hand, Phil Coulson's office was in a very well-protected area of HQ and Clint felt Coulson needed a framed copy of this. It was possible he would make this his Christmas card for his highest-clearance-level SHIELD colleagues. 

(Maybe it would be creepy sending a selfie with Coulson as a Christmas card. He supposed he could gauge by Coulson's reaction to the framed copy. Or crop Coulson out, though he really didn't want to do that.)

He stretched, shaking out the cramp in his hamstring, and then went back to the phone, tapping the thumbnail. Might as well make it his lock page while he was -- 

He dropped the phone.

"Shit!" he muttered, snatching it back up again and tapping the screen. Still functional. He called up the photo again and stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, in the chill and mist, staring at his phone. 

There he was, looking elated and a little goofy in a uniform that was just slightly too broad in the shoulders, the white star on his chest gleaming, one arm around Coulson's shoulders. He looked like a frat boy taking a photo at a costume party. And there was Coulson, smears of grime on his neck and cheeks, suit not quite as impeccable as usual, hair dusted lightly with powder from the explosion -- 

Looking at Clint Barton like he hung the moon and lit it. 

It must have been a trick of the light, but the smile on his face and the lift of his eyebrows, the way he was leaning in -- 

Clint sat down heavily on a bus-stop bench, then got up again, backing away when a bus wheezed up and swung its doors wide. The driver shot him a dirty look, closed the door, and screeched onwards. 

This was -- this wasn't supposed to -- 

It was probably just because of the uniform, he reasoned, as sanity reasserted itself. Everyone knew Coulson had a thing for the _idea_ of Captain America. He was pretty sure Coulson wasn't that into Steve -- well, everyone was a little into Steve, Steve was a great guy and even straight dudes would stop for a second look at that ass, if only for self-comparison purposes -- but Coulson was definitely into Captain America the concept, not Captain America the man. 

So it was probably just the fact that Clint was in the uniform. His mega-competent, ultra-professional boss who Clint had personally seen seduce people both on and off the job before, men and women who themselves would have proclaimed they were infinitely out of Phil Coulson's league -- his famously reserved boss who had been dating the smokingest-hot cellist Clint had ever seen (and had never even implied an attraction to Clint) was definitely not staring at Clint Barton, Professional Meatball, like he wanted to eat him alive. 

Had to be the uniform.

Although...even if it was just the uniform, this might be material he could work with. 

It wasn't like Clint hadn't ever thought about Coulson that way. He didn't usually date men but that was mainly because it was hard to find someone who fit his fairly exacting standards, which had been influenced by Coulson himself in no small part. Clint wasn't quite kinky enough to want a Daddy, but he wasn't quite vanilla enough to pick up some random twink in a bar. He wanted a competent older man with a reasonably firm grasp of command, when he wanted a dude at all, and the line between "commanding" and "asshole" was so very thin. 

So yeah, he'd thought about it, he'd possibly had a few special moments in the shower over it, and if it was just the costume it might be fun to tease him a little over his infatuation with a comic book character. 

_Plus_ , a small voice said in the very back of his mind, _if it isn't just the costume, here's a hell of a way to find out._

Besides, Coulson needed to be reminded that of his three teams, Clint was on two of them, and thus was not to be neglected lightly.


	2. Chapter 2

Phil honestly couldn't have said, if asked, why he put the team on two-day leave. It had been instinct, mainly, and he knew to trust those. Part of him had been hoping they could catch some genuine downtime at the wrap of a particularly intense mission. Most of him had just been thinking _Christ, I need a break._

It was to be expected, after the wound. He tired easily, but at least in the same _way_ he always had -- he pushed until the mission was done and then crashed. This time was no different; as soon as he got to his hotel room (his apartment had been packed up and placed in SHIELD storage as part of the Dead Man Avenging situation, and he'd never bothered to unpack) he felt the crash coming.

His scar hurt, like it usually did when he was exhausted. He was sore from the mission followed by an Avengers fielding. He'd washed the worst of the dirt off and caught a few hours of sleep on a barracks cot on the Carrier, and now his mind was wired, unwilling to rest. 

Food; food and a beer would help. 

It was late, but the restaurant in the hotel lobby wouldn't close for a good half hour, and a waiter ushered him inside immediately like he wasn't That Guest, the pain in the ass who made everyone late getting home. The waiter left to bring him some water and when he came back, Phil was rubbing his eyes.

"You look like you've had a day," the guy said. 

"Something like that," Phil answered. "Whatever's reasonably fresh and fast and whatever's on tap." 

"Thanks for making my life easy," the man said with a smile, heading over to the bar. Phil turned his head to watch him; the guy was young, dirty-blond, cute in a college senior kind of way. And he flicked his eyes over to check Phil out at least twice as he spoke through the service window to the chef. 

Phil leaned back and watched a little more appreciatively as the waiter accepted a salad and a plate of fries, carrying them across the room with a little swagger, beer in his other hand. 

"Fresh and fast," he said, sliding them onto the table. "And a Shiner."

"I'll take it," Phil said, smiling warmly. He'd actually worked on this smile when he was younger. Very few people resisted the smile by now. 

"Anything else?" 

Phil flicked his eyes down and back up. "Not for now," he said. 

"You sure?" the man asked, and with breathtaking chutzpah said, "I could package some _dessert_ to take back to your room. Hot and easy." 

Phil almost gave the kid his spare keycard. He was close. Young, eager, cute -- and a line like that really did sort of deserve a reward. Phil liked audacity. 

But then the kid smiled, and the smile was just slightly wrong -- perfectly fine objectively, but it was the wrong shape, the wrong…

Well, it wasn't Clint. He hadn't been saving himself or anything, but he'd been about to pick up someone too far from Clint for delusion and much too close for comfort. He tried to avoid indulging his crush. 

"Any other night," he said to the boy, whose face fell slightly. "It's a great-looking dessert, but I'm eating light."

That got a shy grin from him. "Well, if you change your mind, leave your room number on your receipt."

Phil ate quickly, the waiter having retired to the kitchen, downed his beer, left cash on the table with a generous tip (and no room number), and went back to his room. 

Two days to get his head on straight. Piece of cake. 

***

Clint hadn't had a chance to meet Coulson's newest team yet, though he knew May from way back. He thought he'd possibly once consulted FitzSimmons about a biometric bow, but it could have been someone else. He found most of the SHIELD nerds pretty interchangeable, and he was sure they found the SHIELD field-agent jocks about the same. He'd heard about Ward from Hill, and from various other agents who thought he was either extraordinarily talented or a blue-flamer with an attitude. The woman, Skye, was new, and apparently some kind of felon. 

He might have done a little surveillance.

Skye had on one of the new generation of restraint bracelets for "contractors". It looked a lot more comfortable than the one they'd put Natasha in when she first arrived. It also looked more effective on Skye than it had been on Tash. Then again, Natasha was a special person. 

He'd had a word with Hill about a favor she owed him from way back; she'd looked amused, but hadn't said anything as she assigned him to the team for their new mission. Now he lurked in the rafters of the hangar where the Bus was parked, watching them gather. He was pretty sure May knew he was there, but if so she was playing along. 

There went FitzSimmons, quarreling along, dragging bags of equipment between them. Skye the Felon had an overnight bag and a laptop case; woman traveled light. Grant Ward was skulking behind her, not that Clint disapproved. Skulking was an important skill. 

Clint felt a little flicker of envy. Ward was a good looking guy; all of these people were extraordinarily, perhaps suspiciously, pretty men and women.

The Bus itself was typical Coulson: big and sleek and old-fashioned the way Coulson liked things, full of sharp spiky bits inside -- classic design concealing top-notch tech. He wondered if Coulson had shown Lola off to any of them yet. Well, May knew about Lola, of course, but the others were...unseasoned. Even Ward was young. 

"Agent Coulson," Ward called, as Coulson walked into the hangar. "How was your pass, sir?"

"Fine, Ward, thank you," Coulson replied. "Skye, staying out of trouble?"

"Not like I had a choice," she answered, holding up her bracelet.

"Well, you did, you just made it a while ago," Coulson said. 

_Snap,_ Clint mouthed to himself. 

"Everyone loaded? May, what's the hold up?" Coulson said, as Melinda May came down the cargo ramp.

"Waiting on a team member," she said. Clint licked his lips. 

"Okay, I'm the last one in. Let's go," Coulson said, sounding perplexed.

"Not this time," she said, and Clint took his cue flawlessly, sliding down the ripline he'd used to get up into the rafters in the first place. He knew she'd noticed him.

"Hey, boss," he said, as Coulson blinked at him. "Hill said you needed a sniper for this one."

Everyone but May was staring at him. Awkward.

"Hi," he said, holding up a hand and taking them all in. "Clint Barton. Coulson will vouch for me." 

"Don't push your luck," Coulson managed. 

"Codename Hawkeye," Ward said. He hurried forward and grabbed Clint's hand in a firm shake. "Pleasure to meet you, sir." 

"Hawkeye like, the Avenger?" Simmons asked.

"Yeah, that'd be me," Clint said. "I'm the one with the arrows."

He thought he heard Skye murmur _Christ, another one_ as she passed them; Ward hadn't let go of his hand, and his smile had turned slightly stiff and panicky. That had happened a few times lately; it seemed to happen most to SHIELD agents who were inexplicably trying to impress him. Clint clasped Ward's fingers with his other hand, then released gently, which usually helped disengage. 

"Okay, we can play hello-my-name-is inside," Coulson said, shepherding them up the cargo ramp. Clint kissed his fingers and tapped them to Lola's hood as he passed, for luck. 

"Hey, this is nice," he said, following the others up to a lounge in the heart of the Bus. 

"Your tax dollars at work," Skye replied. 

"There aren't any bunks left," Fitz said. He looked a little suspicious of the interloper.

"You can take mine, sir," Ward said. "I'm used to sleeping where I can."

Clint actually saw him wince at his own awkwardness. He wanted to sit the kid down and tell him it would be okay, Clint wasn't anyone special he needed to impress -- but honestly, it was too much fun to fuck with him. 

"Nah, I usually find my own roost," he replied, settling on the couch. Ward dropped down into one of the chairs. Skye rolled her eyes and sat next to Ward. 

"Wheels up in two," May's voice called, over the comm. 

"Ward?" Coulson said, coming into the room. "Briefing packets?"

"Wasn't given any, sir, I thought you had them," Ward replied. 

"I was told my team had -- " Coulson stopped as Clint grinned and held up a thick envelope. "Would you like to lead the briefing too?" he asked, flicking one eyebrow upward. 

"I'd like nothing better, sir," Clint replied, handing around packets from the envelope. "We're on a subdue and intake. Subdue is going to have to be long range, for reasons that will become obvious momentarily." 

"Quentin Quire," Skye read, studying the photograph under the cover page. "He looks like fun."

The photo was a high-definition mug shot: a young man with a thatch of short pink hair, shorn into a stripe down the middle of his head, doing the Billy Idol sneer. 

"He can probably hear you," Coulson said, already skimming the report. "Are they serious, an omega-level telepath?"

"SHIELD has an idea of his range," Clint said. SHIELD had known his range for months, and mostly left the kid alone, but Clint needed something impressive and anyway Quire was starting to get dangerous. "You can get about twenty-five hundred yards away before either he runs, or you wake up a few hours later with a headache." 

"This report says someone came within thirty feet of him," Simmons said. 

"Yeah, we think he got bored and decided to get everyone's hopes up," Clint replied. 

"He doesn't appear to be lethal," Coulson observed.

"Which is why we're treating it non-lethally. Telepath and telekinetic, yes; resistant to SHIELD-grade sedatives, not so much."

"Wait," Skye said. "Is this mug shot recent? How old is -- oooooooh you're going to get in _so_ much trouble when this inevitably leaks," she finished, checking Quire's birthdate. 

"Can they just not hear it when I say Non Lethal?" Clint asked Coulson.

"They're new, their filters aren't calibrated yet," Coulson replied. 

"Hey!" Skye said, at the same time Ward said, "I'm not _new_." 

"They're fucking adorable," Clint said. 

"I'm aware. So, you have an ethical objection to SHIELD subduing and reallocating a fifteen year old boy. Let's address this," Coulson said to her. 

"I -- without his parents present? Yes, I do have an ethical objection. What does reallocating even -- "

"Well, we can pick up his parents before we question him. But seeing as they put him out of the house when he was twelve, thinking maybe they're not his best advocates."

"How do you put a telepath out of the house?" Fitz asked.

"Is that the start of a joke?" Ward asked uncertainly.

"No, I'm genuinely curious. If he can influence other people and move things around telekinetically, why didn't he just enslave his parents with the power of his mind? It's what I would have done," Fitz said. 

"Good to know," Coulson said into the awkward silence that followed. 

"The point is, this is a child, and he has no-one, and SHIELD can provide a support network now that he's back on the map," Clint said. "He hasn't killed anyone yet, at least that we know of, and we'd like to keep it that way. And with his sensory range -- "

"Twenty-five hundred yards, probably a crowded urban area," Coulson said. "We need you just to make the shot to sedate him."

"Yes you do." 

"So we're escort," Skye said. She waggled a finger in the air. "Fun."

"No, you're bait," Clint replied. 

***

"Why do you think he chose Tokyo?" Coulson asked, once they'd finished haggling over the ethics of darting, bagging, and imprisoning, at least for some length of time, a teenage boy. They were in Coulson's very swanky onboard office now, Coulson studying a map of Tokyo while Clint inspected the room. "He falls off-grid for two years, gets arrested in New York, walks out of jail on a Jedi-mind-trick pass, and then hops a plane to Japan? Why Tokyo?"

"Easy access to hentai," Clint said. This was going to be so much easier than he imagined. 

His three point plan had been to bring up sex in a general kind of way, then reveal his secret weapon, and then -- well okay, it was a two point plan, but he wasn't sure how Coulson was going to react to the secret weapon, that would influence point three. 

Also somewhere in here he was bagging SHIELD an omega-level telepath, but that was mostly gravy. 

"Do I want to know what hentai is?" Coulson asked.

"Do you seriously not already?" Clint asked incredulously. Surely everyone knew what hentai was. Especially suave globetrotting fuckers like Coulson. 

"I'm going to assume it's either intoxicant or pornographic," Coulson said, leaning back in his chair.

Clint wandered over and propped his ass on Coulson's desk, so that his thigh was brushing the arm of Coulson's chair. 

"It's variously used to refer to drawn pornography or erotica, a specific artistic genre of same, or in a separate sense a perverse sexual act," Clint said. "Tentacles, absurdly oversized phalluses, that kind of thing. Hot stuff if you're fifteen and you've spent your whole life in the Puritan commonwealth of the United States." 

"Are we decrying the loss of the traditional stealing of one's father's Playboys, or are we embracing something new and hip?" Coulson asked. He hadn't missed a beat when Clint got a little dirty, but Clint thought he might have seen his grip on the computer stylus tighten. 

"I don't really have an opinion," Clint shrugged. "I'm just saying, at his age sex and pissing everyone off are the only things people enjoy."

"We sound old," Coulson said. 

"Grown-up, maybe," Clint replied. He let the implication hang in the air between them -- _I'm not a kid, don't handle me like one_ \-- and then pushed off the desk.

"Anyhow, the kid's gonna stick out like a sore thumb," Clint said. "We might be old but he's just not that bright. We'll bag him. Meantime, I'm gonna go make nice with your people. The Clint Barton Goodwill Tour."

"Don't make Ward pee submissively," Coulson said. 

"Harsh, boss!" Clint said over his shoulder as he left. He almost ran into May, who was heading for the lounge.

"We're thirteen hours out from final descent," she said. "If you sleep now, you might end up on Tokyo time, or at least in the general ballpark." 

"What's the challenge in that?" he asked, but he was grinning. "Did you use that line to get the others to clear out?"

"FitzSimmons is doing the calculations to see if that's even physically possible. Skye and Ward like excuses to be solitary and antisocial. Keeps them all quiet and out of our hair."

"Are you sleeping?" he asked. 

"Nope -- I'm in the cockpit the whole way there, just taking a two-minute break to put the kids to bed and grab a soda," she said, opening the fridge in the lounge.

"Shame. I was going to challenge you to some sparring after we all take a jet lag nap," Clint said. "Think Ward would take me up on it?"

"Sure. Call me before you do, I'll tune in on the security monitor."

"Don't drive distracted," he said with a grin. "Hey, May," he added, as she settled back into the pilot's seat. "How's he doing? For real?"

"For real?" she asked, twisting around. 

"Yeah. You know. None of this code of silence bullshit. How is he? One lieutenant to another." 

"Recovering," she said quietly.

"But not there yet."

"Don't put on any kid gloves. He won't appreciate that."

"Gimme a little credit, May."

"As little as possible, Barton, you still owe me ten bucks."

Clint made an outraged noise as she turned back to her instruments. "Two bucks!"

"I charge interest."

"Ruthless!"

"Pay up and I'll drop it. Do you even remember why you owe me two bucks?"

"No, and at this point I won't pay on principle," Clint said. "Goodnight to you, Agent May."

"'Night, welcher," she replied, and he shut the cabin door. 

***

By the time Clint made it down to FitzSimmon's lab, they had begun building a machine that would disrupt the part of the brain that controlled the internal clock, thus eradicating jet lag. They explained to him, in a flurry of excitement that he sensed had little to do with him and more to do with a sympathetic ear, that if it didn't end up doing permanent brain damage or causing a stroke, it might be very useful on transglobal missions like this one. 

Listening to the pair of them was like listening to Bruce and Tony on one of their science jags, only with nicer accents and less sexual harassment. Clint didn't mind that he didn't follow everything; he just enjoyed sitting on the end of a lab bench and watching them go. FitzSimmons: definitely a keeper.

Skye was a little pricklier. When he ambled away from the lab and back up to the living quarters, she'd migrated out to the lounge and had a loose, apocalyptic-looking assemblage of computers spread out on the coffee table.

"Needed more room," she said as he sat down across from her, eyeing the machines. "And unlike technology and biology, I don't get a lab, since hacking is something people assume I can do anywhere, with an Apple IIe and that good old fighting neo-anarchist spirit."

"You mean Independence Day lied to me?" he asked. 

"Wow, classic film reference for the win," she said, and yeah, now Clint did feel old. "So do you do this a lot?"

"What's that?"

"Hitch rides to exotic foreign locales, commit acts of child endangerment and kidnapping, flirt with everyone."

"Not flirting," he said. "Making nice."

"Mmhm."

"Anyway, you see which way Ward went?" Clint asked. 

"If he's not in quarters he's probably in the gym," she replied. "I think he likes the heavy bag more than he likes most people."

"Heavy bag's got a lot fewer expectations of him," Clint replied. "Thanks, I'll go find him. Good luck with whatever it is you're doing there. If the computer asks you if you want to play a game, say no."

"Whatever," he heard her mutter, but she respectfully didn't say it very loudly.

Ward was in one of the bunks in the sleeping quarters, sitting crosslegged on his bed. He was reading a book with the obnoxiously large title splayed on the front cover: SOCIAL ENGINEERING. He looked up, then actually _stood to attention_ when Clint slouched in the doorway. 

"At ease," Clint said with a grin. "I came to ask you a favor."

"Of course, sir," Ward replied. Clint was sometimes called sir by the lower echelon SHIELD grunts, but usually other specialists -- well, they called him a lot of names depending on his past history with them, but they rarely called him sir. He was finding it novel and entertaining. 

"I'd like to do a little sparring to limber up, say in about eight hours, before we land. May's got to fly the Bus, and I don't think any of the others have your level of training."

"I'd be honored, Agent Barton."

"Thanks, Ward. I'll set the alarm." 

"Sir…." Ward said, as Clint turned to go. "Can I ask a favor?"

"Sure," Clint said, turning back. "What do you need?"

"I was hoping to have a look at the piece you're using for the op," Ward said. "I was trying to decide if I'd use a McMillan Tac-50 or an M24."

"Straight up, an M24?" Clint asked, surprised. "I wouldn't take an M24 out over two thousand yards. I mean, not if I had another option." 

"So it's the Tac-50."

"Well, it used to be one," Clint said. "I've had to do some pretty heavy mods. Come on, have a look."

When Coulson wandered through the sleeping deck an hour or two later, headed for his own bed (probably at May's urging), Clint and Ward were sitting on the floor outside Ward's room, surrounded by pieces of rifle, discussing Clint's mods.

"Hey boss," Clint said. "Ward and I are sparring tomorrow morning. Well, 'tomorrow', time zones. Want to come down and cheer?"

"Put me on the alarm," Coulson said, sounding wearier than he normally allowed himself, and disappeared into his slightly-larger, slightly-more-private room at the end. 

"Okay, I'm gonna get some sleep," Clint said, packing the rifle away neatly. "See you for sparring."

"I can't wait," Ward replied, and Clint patted his shoulder. "Seriously, though, do you want my bunk tonight?"

"No, I'll find somewhere to curl up," Clint said.

He ended up bunking on Lola's bench seat, because it was comfortable and because he loved Lola. Coulson used Lola to recruit Clint, dangling flying cars and legitimate employment in front of a very young, very poor stunt shooter who hadn't been convicted of any felonies only because he hadn't been caught yet. Later, Coulson and Clint took Natasha driving in it while they ironed out how an ex-Russian-spy, mercenary assassin, and general national security risk _regardless of nation_ was going to join the ultimate authority in global peacekeeping. 

Lot of good memories of Lola. He wondered if Coulson had given any of the new kids his _Strangest Show on Earth_ speech. 

***

Clint deployed the secret weapon at sparring practice. 

Ward was already doing stretches in the little gym when he arrived, looking like he was psyching himself up for the match. Clint shuffled past him in his uniform pants and a baggy sweatshirt, taking up a clear area of the workout pads in which to do his own warm-ups. By the time he felt ready, FitzSimmons had showed up with a bowl of gummy bears and Skye was there with her nose buried in a computer. Coulson was leaning in the doorway, for once out of his customary suit, in clothes that said he was probably going to hit the gym once they were done. 

"Ready for this?" Ward asked as he wrapped his hands.

"Oh, sure," Clint replied. "Hang on, I gotta -- " 

He tugged the sweatshirt over his head, setting it aside, and reached out to accept the tape from Ward. "Best two out of three pins?" 

"And a step outside the line's a forfeit," Ward offers.

Clint risked a glance at Coulson. It was hard to tell, but he thought he saw spots of color on his cheeks. "Sure, sounds fair," he said, stretching again. The t-shirt he'd been wearing under the sweatshirt rode up a little, the red and white stripes gapping over the waistband to show some skin. When he came down from the stretch, Coulson was avoiding looking at him. 

It hadn't been hard to find a Captain America uniform t-shirt. Bootlegs had sprung up all over, and Stark Industries had licensed legal ones, too. He'd bought this one, based on Coulson's Cap-suit design -- vertical stripes under the blue chest with the white star -- in a midtown department store. It was about a size too small, a trick Clint had picked up from Steve, who he was pretty sure wasn't doing it on purpose. When shopping, Steve appeared to forget he no longer had the chest of an adolescent boy and that the too-small, painted-on shirts he wore could cut a swathe of lust through any crowd. 

At any rate, the shirt was tight enough to flatter without being so tight he couldn't move. And the reaction it was getting from Coulson, once he'd stopped pointedly not looking at Clint, was worth the price of the shirt. Every time a grapple with Ward turned Clint around and gave him a view of his audience, Coulson's eyes were on him; he was certain Coulson had been watching him when he backflipped off the ground and used Natasha's choke-you-with-my-thighs technique to bring Ward down with him. 

The fighting was entertaining enough that soon Clint forgot even to look, focusing on learning Ward's style and how to beat it. He fought a little like Natasha; maybe she'd done some training work with him. Ward was kind of wiry, but when he wasn't trying out moves Clint had seen done better by Tash he did tend to sort of bull his way along. He'd learned finesse but hadn't internalized it. 

Eventually he managed to get Ward pinned for a second time, and they broke apart; Ward bounded up, no hard feelings, and offered to shake, looking like getting his ass kicked by Clint Barton had been a boyhood dream. He tottered off towards the showers, and Clint had to admit he knew how the guy felt. It had been a long session, and Ward got a few good hits in. He was sweaty, too, and…

He stopped in the middle of drying his face with the hem of his shirt, looking up at the others. FitzSimmons looked traumatized. Skye looked kinda turned on. 

"Well, that was...graphic," Coulson said. He was staring at Clint's throat, at least now that he'd lowered his shirt again. "Thank you for reminding his teammates how Grant Ward could kill them all if they ever pushed him over the edge."

"Hey, you hired him," Clint said. He turned his face up to the camera in the gym. "May, how'd you like that?"

"I need a cigarette," May replied over the intercom. 

"You all should see the boss fight some time," Clint said, peeling the tape off his hands and casually drifting towards Coulson. "Care to try the mats, sir?"

"Not anymore," Coulson said, but Clint could sniff out the note of regret in the even-tempered tone. "I leave that to the level sevens." 

"Uh-huh," Clint said, grinning at him. "You just don't want to scare anyone."

"I find fear is a very poor motivator in a team environment," Coulson said. His eyes flicked down Clint's body, and Clint felt distinctly _checked out_. "Nice shirt. Very discreet."

"I missed the big white target on my chest," Clint said, tapping the star. "But I can ditch it if you want."

He peeled the shirt off, mopping his forehead with it. Skye's eyes went a little glassy. So, interestingly, did Fitz's. 

"We're touching down at noon, local time," Coulson said, instead of responding to the taunt (or the tease). "Have your weapons check completed. Ward will be spotting you; we'd like to try to hit Quire as soon as possible, but take the time you need."

"No problem, sir," Clint said. "I have individualized orders for the team once we land, and an idea of where to set my blind." 

"Understood. Once you're in position, this op is your command. If there are any issues I can call it, but otherwise you're the boss." 

"Oh, the heady power," Clint said, grinning. "Reconvene at landing minus one hour, I'll brief everyone on their assignments then," he added, turning to the others. "I'm going to go clean up. Try not to treat Ward like an unexploded grenade when he gets out." 

***

Clint actually had Natasha do up the plan for the op. It was a theoretical exercise they'd played around with a few months previous: how do you safely bag a telepath, who could work out what you were up to by reading your intentions? When the Quire job came up, he gave her a quick call to ask if he could implement her model op, and she seemed amused but said yes. 

The model called for the sniper to run the op, because he wouldn't be in range of the telepath until the last possible moment. There was one person acting as direct bait, in this case May, who only had to wander around a certain geographic area, carrying a specially prepared bag. She wasn't told that inside the bag was a device which synthesized a telepathic presence, broadcasting the sensation of a telepath nearby. Its developers called it a spook machine, because it had the secondary effect of unnerving ordinary people. 

The rest of the team, except Ward, were told only to protect May at all costs, and to be as obvious and loud as they wanted about it. Their focus on the mission of protecting her would mask anything they knew about the actual operation. 

Clint briefed Ward on the plan once they were in place in the blind. May would lure Quire into the area, and while he was distracted with trying to find the other telepath, Clint would dart him. 

"Simple, low-risk. I like it," Ward said. "I've studied Romanoff's ops. She's got a great tactical mind."

"Tell me about it. I've been in prank wars with her before," Clint said, getting his rifle into place. 

"What's it like? Being an Avenger?" Ward asked.

"Why, is that where you're looking to end up?" Clint asked, curious. "A super-team?"

Ward shook his head. "I don't do teams very well," he said. "Pretty sure I've already put myself off the candidate list. Just curious."

"Don't sell yourself short, no label is forever," Clint replied. "What kind of wind speed are you seeing?"

"Low. Want me to take a measurement?"

"Just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I wasn't seeing; no urgency." Clint sighted through the scope, finding May without too much difficulty. "I've got eyes on bait. You keep a general sweep going. Let me know the minute you have eyes on target."

"Yes, sir," Ward said. 

"Anyhow, if you're so shitty at teams, why are you on this one?" 

"Agent Coulson requested me. He didn't really give me a specific reason."

"Hm." Clint kept his eye on May as she window-shopped her way down the street, escorted by Coulson. "So despite your poor people skills -- and wow, you really are an awkward little turtle, Ward, no offense -- one of the top agents in SHIELD, Fury's right-hand guy that was, requested you for one of the slots on his elite investigation and recovery team. It makes a certain amount of sense, I guess."

He could hear the tension in Ward's voice. "Because?"

"Well, other people who are super-duper poor at joining teams, and I know this from personal experience, include Tony Stark, the Hulk, and Nick Fury." 

"...I'm enjoying being compared to one of those," Ward said cautiously. 

"My point is that extraordinary people are usually shitty at teams. They not only think they're special snowflakes, they actually are special snowflakes," Clint said. "But if you can crowbar them into a team who will squash their bullshit for long enough to get something done, they discover that their special snowflake status does not exempt them from learning how to play well with others. Coulson knows that. Fury definitely does. It's the prevailing theory that drove the Avengers Initiative to begin with."

Ward was silent for a moment. 

"How does this apply to Hulk?" he asked finally.

"Oh, it doesn't. But if a semi-verbal, eight hundred pound wrecking ball of rage can be accepted as an Avenger, trust me, you can learn to be a team player too." 

"Coulson said you had a knack for providing perspective," Ward said.

"He mentioned me?"

"He says you're a big-picture guy."

"I do see better from a distance," Clint agreed. "Hush now, before this gets awkward."

"You never answered my question," Ward said.

"What it's like to be an Avenger? Fame without empathy and family without blood," Clint replied. "Everyone knows who you are but nobody really understands what you do. You got five other people who'd die for you, and now you have to learn what kind of movies they like and what they get on their pizza. It's exhausting. Rather have it than not. Now be quiet." 

"Thank you, sir," Ward said, and fell silent. 

***

"So," Phil said, as they strolled down a street in a major Tokyo shopping district, "I may have to murder Clint Barton. Be my alibi?"

Melinda, arm in arm with him, smiled faintly. "What's he done now?"

"He's acting erratically. I'm not even sure he's him. And that's only half-joking. I checked his biometrics before we deplaned, just to be sure." 

"He's flirting with you," she said. "Is that erratic? He always flirts with me."

"Clint does that to everyone. This is a step up."

"The t-shirt was a nice touch."

"The t-shirt is the sort of behavior that I'm finding worrying and frustrating in equal amounts," he said. 

"Are you into him?"

"I'm his superior, Melinda. At the moment, he is on all three of the teams I supervise. I am more responsible for him than I am for any other person on the planet. I'm not allowed to be _into_ him."

"I can remember at least three instances in the past where that didn't stop you," she said. "For a while there you cut a line of broken hearts through SHIELD."

"Never a direct report, never someone who might have felt coerced. Lower security clearances, maybe, a few, but not anyone who couldn't freely say no. And I didn't break any hearts. SHIELD agents don't break that easily." He stopped when she did, pretending to examine a display of shoes in a window. 

"I'm reasonably certain he is not feeling coerced," Melinda said. "I'm beginning to worry you might be."

"I can handle him. But we're going to have to have a little come-to-Jesus after this op is over." 

FitzSimmons, who were in character as a pair of tourists and were leading them around based on a map of Clint's sightlines, turned left. Phil and May followed at a leisurely pace. He saw May check their six after a few feet, to make sure Skye was still trailing them. 

"But are you?" she asked. "Into him?"

"Something tells me you already know the answer to that," he replied. 

"How long?"

"I'd have to check his records, see when I recruited him. It was about six months after whenever that was."

"Wow."

"It's been a traumatic decade," he said calmly. "Look, I'm not the grand-passions guy, Melinda. I'm capable of being attracted to someone, not acting on it, and having a perfectly full life in the meantime." 

"Still. Shame never to hit that."

"Somehow I'll survive," he said drily. She stopped, and instead of looking at the store window, she looked at him. 

"This hurts you, doesn't it?" she asked. "That he's making a pass. It's like being taunted."

"A little. Like I said, I'll handle it when the op is done. And now I'm changing the subject," he added, continuing on. "FitzSimmons say they want to go to a Butler Cafe after the op is over. I was trying to think of a way to get Ward to go with them, but I think Skye's reaction might actually be funnier." 

"We might get a thirty minute lecture on the economic advantages of dismantling the class system and the perils of oppression nostalgia," Melinda said. 

"She's certainly educational," Phil replied. 

His phone rang, and when he brought up the lock screen, the call was a temporary number they'd assigned to Ward. 

"Unless the next words out of your mouth are 'we bagged him' you'd better not be calling me," he said.

"We bagged him," Ward said. "Slight problem."

"Slight problem?" 

"Some good samaritans saw the kid pass out, they're pretty clearly calling the cops and ambulance services." 

"Dammit. How far are we?" 

"Five, six blocks. Got him on your GPS now," Ward said, and Coulson hung up, bringing up GPS. 

"Skye, FitzSimmons, back to HQ, collect Ward and Barton on your way," he called, and the others took off running. "May, you're with me." 

They heard the commotion long before they saw it; the wail of an ambulance siren, the red flash of police lights. He let May shove a path through interested onlookers, following close, and then came roaring out of the crowd like a crazy man when she sidestepped. 

"Quentin!" he yelled, as EMTs worked over the unconscious boy. He couldn't see the dart; hopefully it had sprung back, as they were intended to do, and fallen somewhere that wasn't incriminatingly close. "Quentin! Hey, that's my son -- that's my SON!" he yelled, as the police tried to push him back. "Do you speak English? My son!" 

The police were all talking over him and one another, trying to calm him down, and he had to admit that he did enjoy a little street theater now and then. By the time he established his paternity of the boy, mainly by shouting MY SON a lot like an idiot American, the most dangerous telepath in the hemisphere was backboarded and being loaded into an ambulance. Once he was inside with the kid and two paramedics, they closed the door and he held up his badge. The men looked at each other, worried.

" _My name is Phil Coulson_ ," he said in Japanese, hoping his accent hadn't slipped, hoping they understood him. " _I'm an agent of SHIELD._ "

" _The guys who fought the Chitauri with the Avengers,_ " one of them said.

" _Yes. This man is a danger to himself and the population, and we're taking him into custody. He's not sick; he's been sedated on our orders._ "

" _You should have told the driver, ma --_ " the other one started, and just then the ambulance swerved roughly.

" _I have an agent discussing it with him now,_ " Phil said. 

" _It's your show,_ " the first one said.

There was a long moment of silence. 

" _So, do you know Tony Stark?_ " one of them asked.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, that was exciting," Clint called, as the EMTs unloaded Quire's unconscious body from the ambulance at the airstrip. "Love it when you improvise, boss." 

"Kinda cute. He could be your kid," Skye said, studying the unconscious Quire being rolled up the cargo ramp. "He has that whole square nose thing going on."

"Square...nose…?" Coulson asked, squinting, and then said, "Nevermind," because he didn't actually want to know. "Simmons, get him sedated and keep him sedated until I can break out the Helmet of Shame; Barton and Skye, go with her and stand guard. Ward and May, preflight perimeter sweep; Fitz, get a clear comm through to SHIELD and let them know we have Kid Omega." 

Clint pushed the gurney through to the lab, keeping one hand on Quire just in case he woke up before Simmons could run an IV. Once it was in, he perched on a nearby workbench, one leg drawn up, eyes on the prisoner.

Skye was staring at him with big huge humanitarian-activist anime-heroine eyes. 

"Worried about him?" he asked, nodding at the kid.

"No, I uh." She looked away. "Sorry, I've never been part of a _hit squad_ before."

"You haven't been part of one now. If you did, we wouldn't need to keep him on sedation," Clint reminded her. 

"I know, I don't mean to -- it's just...you ran an operation, you sat up there until you could shoot this guy -- "

"Dart him, actually."

" -- dart this guy, then without anyone giving you an order you just sh -- darted him, and then you came down to ground level and now you're standing guard. I don't know, I can't explain, there's just something super-weird about that. Does it keep you up at night?"

"No," Clint said.

"See, and that scares me a little," she replied. Clint shrugged and turned back to his contemplation of Quire. 

"Human brains are adaptive. You just get used to it. If the volume of times I've killed someone long-range in order to become desensitized bothers you, then your problem is with the military-industrial complex, not me."

"Well, no, 'cause you took the job, and if nobody took the job it wouldn't happen."

"True. But I tell you what -- when the bad guys start operating that way, the good guys won't need guys like me." 

"Are you so sure we're the good guys?"

Clint grinned, not looking away from Quire. "Yeah, I am. If you aren't, consider your future here carefully."

"It was here or prison."

"That's what the Axis soldiers said, too, or so Captain America tells me." 

She whistled. "Godwin'd. I think I automatically win, don't I?"

"I've borrowed the pants of Godwin's Law personified. I wasn't concerned with winning. I don't need you to like me, Skye. Wouldn't mind if you did, but I'm not seeking your approval. I know who I am and what I stand for and I'm at peace with what I do."

He saw a flicker of something out of the corner of his eye, an expression crossing her face. Hurt, maybe. Shit, he'd probably dug in some tucked-away wound he didn't know about. Coulson did like the broken ones. After all, Clint was one of his. 

"You didn't really need us for this mission, did you?" Skye asked, surprising him. 

"Nope. I could have used any team."

"Then why us? Was it to get to Coulson?" 

"Nobody _gets to_ Coulson. Man's a force of nature." 

"Then why us?"

"Why not? You got a sweet ride and the boss owed me one," Clint said, just as Coulson walked in. He was carrying a helmet that looked like it had been hand-hammered out of steel. 

"Bus is secured," he said, strapping the helmet onto Quire, securing buckles above his eyes and under his chin. "Skye, FitzSimmons is going to get dinner in town, you should go."

"I should?"

"May's doing preflight and I want Ward and Barton close by in case we have any trouble with Quire," he said, adjusting the feed of sedative in the IV. "Go on. Have fun. Bring me back some inarizushi." 

"Fine by me," she said. "Later, Godwin."

"Bye, Skye," Clint called. 

"Godwin?" Coulson asked.

"I cited Nazi Germany at her, she took it personally," Clint replied. 

"People sometimes do," Coulson said, coming to stand in front of him. Clint, sitting on the edge of the workbench, cocked his head. 

"Problem, boss?" he asked.

"Didn't want to let it interrupt the op," Coulson said. "But you and I need to discuss your behavior on the Bus."

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure what your goal is, here," Coulson said. "With the Captain America t-shirt and the hips thing you keep doing."

"The hips thing," Clint repeated, pretending like he had no idea what Coulson was saying.

"Yes, the hips thing, you know what I mean," Coulson said. He sounded almost...almost flustered, which was close to blasphemy for Clint. "Suddenly you act like you want to take a bite out of me. I want to know what's going on."

"What if I just want to take a bite out of you?" Clint asked. Well, here came the third point of the three point plan. Apparently Coulson got to pick what it was.

"Then this should be as easy as me telling you I'm not interested, and you stopping," Coulson said. 

Clint took out his phone, cleared the lockscreen, and turned it around to show the photograph of him in uniform with Coulson smiling at him.

"I don't believe you," he said. 

Coulson squinted. "That's the picture you took."

"Steve sent it to me after I sent it to him," Clint said. "I was going to put it on this year's Christmas card, but it seemed a little intimate."

Coulson's eyes flicked up to his. "Trick of the light."

"I don't think so, boss," Clint said. "Look, I get it. Is it about the costume? I mean, the way I see it, either it's about the costume, which, hey, if you want a roll in the sheets with Captain America I'm not gonna say no to standing in -- and if it's not about the costume…" he grinned. "We could have some fun, Phil, you know we could."

"You can believe what you want to believe," Coulson said. "This is me telling you unequivocally that you are a valued asset in my portfolio but that I am not interested in a relationship with you."

"Why are you getting all HR-talk about this?" Clint asked. 

"Why did you come into my team and use a mission as a way to make a pass at me?" Coulson said. "It's hurtful, Clint."

" _Hurtful?_ "

"I don't want sex with you, or with Captain America, not in these circumstances. I'm not a prize you get to win."

"Okay, I'm sorry, I was yanking your chain a little with the shirt, but -- " 

"Why would you do that?" Coulson asked. 

" _Because I didn't think I'd ever have an actual shot with you!_ " Clint yelled, losing his patience. "I thought either you'd laugh it off or we'd have a little fun, no strings, no hard feelings. I didn't expect _srs bznss_ Coulson," he added, sounding petulant even to his own ears. 

Coulson just stared at him. 

"Look, there's a difference between finding someone hot in the Captain America uniform and wanting to date him," Clint said. "I'm pathetic enough to take option one if that's all I get. I figured if you were smart enough not to act on whatever it was you felt, you were distant enough not to care if I waggled my ass at you, which meant you were too distant to actually want something of substance."

"Oh my God," came a voice from the table behind them. Both men froze. "Did I seriously get tranked and wake up in the middle of a relationship fight? Is this my life?" 

Coulson gave him a warning look and brushed past him to where Quire was testing the restraints on his wrists.

"It must be very quiet in there right now," he said. Quire stilled. "Can't hear much, can you?" 

"I can hear just fine, asshole, and what I hear sounds like grand theft person."

Coulson clicked his tongue. "That's very strong language for a young man in your position. The reason you can't undo the velcro or command me to do your bidding is that we've put something on your head we like to call the neural inverter. It's basically just a sheet of dense alloy that seems to prevent telepaths from activating their powers."

"Jesus, the Men in Black arrested me," the boy muttered. 

"My name is Coulson, and you're on a SHIELD transport heading back to the United States," Coulson said. 

"And you and your boyfriend are in a fight, yeah, I got it," Quire retorted. 

"Permission to maim, sir?" Clint asked, while Coulson rubbed his eyes.

"Denied. The Professor gets annoyed when they show up with bruises." 

"The Professor?" Quire asked, suddenly going very still. "You're taking me to him?"

"You know about him?" Coulson asked.

"I know he shows up at peoples' houses and then they disappear," Quire said, sounding genuinely scared now. "Only reason they didn't get to me is my parents freaked out and threw me out after he showed up, and I got away before he came back. What is it, does he do experiments? Is he keeping us in a zoo? This seriously isn't cool -- "

"Professor Xavier is a teacher," Coulson said. "He likes to give the speech himself but in this case I think perhaps we'd better explain. You're being taken to a school for gifted young individuals." 

"Fucking Juvie, are you kidding me?"

"It's not juvenile detention. It's a boarding school. For people like you."

"Do you need me here?" Clint asked, as Quire renewed his struggles. 

"Don't think so," Coulson replied.

"Then I'm gonna -- "

"I'll catch up," Coulson said, nodding. Clint glanced back at Quire and left the room. 

Outside, out of view of the lab, he bonked his head against the wall gently.

"Stupid," he muttered. "Nobody gets to Coulson."

***

"So, what's your boyfriend's name?" Quire asked, as soon as Clint was out the door. Phil set about checking his restraints.

"He's not my boyfriend," he said. 

"He wants to be, though," Quire replied. "Don't need to be a telepath to see that." 

"Just how long were you awake?"

"Long enough. Interrogation not going how you expected, is it?"

"Oh, there's no interrogation," Phil said. Quire frowned. "Well, I suppose I could question you about any national secrets you may have overheard from government officials during your stay in Japan. I don't know, intel acquired by telepath doesn't carry much weight at the DoD. At least, not yet." 

"Do I get leniency in exchange?"

"Nope," Coulson said cheerfully. "Sorry, you're going to an expensive private school with an eight to one teacher-student ratio on the taxpayer's dime whether you're good or bad." 

"Not much motivation to be good, then," Quire replied. 

Coulson smiled at him. "We're going to get to know each other, Mr. Quire. We've got a few hours until we hand you over to Professor Xavier, and I think I can probably manage to motivate you by then."

*** 

Clint mostly sulked in the cargo bay, sitting up in the rafters above the SUV, until takeoff. If Coulson sulked, he did it while counseling Quire on his options.

By the time FitzSimmons and Skye returned from the butler cafe (Skye had a souvenir portrait of herself with a bunch of butlers; apparently the lecture Melinda had anticipated could wait) Quentin was sitting up in a chair in the interrogation room, handcuffed but reasonably compliant, and definitely not getting mocked by anyone looking at the security feed for wearing a bucket on his head. 

"Okay, boys and girls," May said over the intercom. "We're taking off at 8pm local time, and we'll be landing in fourteen hours at 8pm local time. Lights are going out shortly."

"We just gonna keep him there for fourteen hours?" Ward asked, when they'd hit cruising altitude and Coulson emerged from the interrogation room.

"No, we'll let him up to use the bathroom and walk around a little. Eventually. That'll be your job," Coulson said, mock-brightly. Ward sighed, heading for his room. FitzSimmons were already in theirs, as was Skye. "Barton, I don't think we've finished our discussion."

"Frankly, sir, I think it can wait," Clint said, because he wasn't even sure what discussion they were having anymore, but it definitely wasn't the fun one he'd been hoping for.

"Well, fortunately, that's my call and not yours to make," Coulson replied. Clint pushed himself out of the chair, glaring, and headed for his office. 

"Now, where were we?" Coulson said, once the door was shut. "Were you implying you wanted a _relationship_ with me?"

"Well, this is humiliating," Clint observed. "No, I said I wanted to fuck you, and was desperate enough to say I'd wear a Captain America uniform if necessary."

"But if a relationship were on offer."

"You've made it pretty clear it's not," Clint retorted. 

Coulson leaned back on his desk, arms crossed. "I'm your supervising agent. I literally can't offer you that."

"Come on, really? You're quoting SHIELD regs to me right now?"

"Clint, I have spent _years_ quoting those regs to myself over this." 

Clint felt himself deflate, the righteous indignation replaced with shock. "Years."

Coulson ran a hand over his face. "You think I saw you in the uniform and it just flipped a switch?"

"I -- I thought maybe -- "

"Well, it did cause a reaction," Coulson said. "Clint...you are the most valued person in my life. You are an enormous piece of it. And yes, to pet your ego, you do look exceptionally nice in Captain America's uniform. But I don't get to have you, Clint, which is something I have accepted for, yes, years. That's the ultimate outcome of all of this. That's why I am asking you to stop, because to keep doing what you're doing, that's just cruel to me." 

They were standing about three feet apart. Clint sighed.

"Okay. I quit," he said. 

"Excuse me?" Phil asked. 

"I quit SHIELD. Effective immediately. You're no longer my boss, problem solved," he said. "Or I can just quit your teams. Or you could stop handling the Avengers and me 'n Natasha. But I can quit, if you want."

"That's ridiculous."

"No, what's ridiculous is you clinging to some regulation as an excuse not to do anything, and then when you realize you can totally do everything, putting the regulation in the way. I'm not coerced, Phil, I just offered to quit SHIELD to be with you because this guy -- " he held up his phone, and Phil looked down, away from the image, " -- this guy looks like he could be the best thing that ever happened to me. There I am, dumbfucking around, and there you are being perfect and cool and just -- ugh, you _frustrate_ me." 

Phil paused before speaking. "That was a lot of emotion for twenty seconds."

"I know!" 

Phil rubbed his eyes. "Okay. Let's just...take Quire to Westchester and get back to HQ. We'll find a bar, we'll talk this out."

Clint took a step forward. "Actually talk it out. As in, consider options other than cockblocking." 

"Actually talk," Coulson said, gentler now. Clint took another step, putting them very close together. 

"Boss, if you don't know what I'm about to do you're losing your edge," he said quietly, and Phil tilted his head a little, ducking forward. Clint met him before he got all the way, overbalanced slightly, and grabbed Phil's shirt to steady himself as they kissed.

"Goddammit," Phil said into his mouth, but he grabbed the back of Clint's head and held him still, so Clint figured he probably didn't actually mean it. 

The kiss got a little aggressive after that -- Phil nipped his bottom lip and then grazed his tongue with sharp teeth when Clint even tried to get the upper hand. Once he settled down and stopped trying to push, though, Phil gentled to a warm, open press of lips, slick tongue, soft huffs of breath. When Clint crowded in, Phil hitched up on the desk and tugged him forward, his other hand in the small of Clint's back. Clint's hands went to Phil's thighs, pulling their bodies flush. Phil was as hard as he was, and he made a soft, startled noise. 

"This isn't talking," Phil said, as Clint buried his face in his shoulder, inhaling -- the wool of his suit, aftershave, soap. 

"Fuck talking," Clint replied. "I mean, no…" he rested his forehead on Phil's shoulder. "Can we do this and then talk?" he pleaded. 

"That is not a wise decision."

"No, but it would be _so much more fun_ \-- " Clint started, then broke off because Phil had tipped his head back up and kissed him again. 

"I died," Phil said, and Clint froze. "I died, and when I came back -- I don't know how to do things, sometimes, anymore, I don't…"

"Boss. Come on. I mean it's pretty simple anatomy, if you don't remember how I can show you -- "

Phil huffed. "Not that, I remember _that_. I just don't...sometimes I don't connect right. Sometimes there's something...missing, negative space. It's hard to explain. I don't want to be -- I don't want to go into this with something missing, I don't want you to find out down the line that I'm...incomplete."

Clint leaned back. Phil looked a little destroyed. Worse than he had in a long time. 

"I am tired of feeling defective," Phil said wearily. "I only have one shot at you, so I don't want to be defective when I take it." 

"Okay, well, first, we're both defective, that's why we work for SHIELD," Clint said. "But even if you are outside-of-SHIELD broken, what, are we assuming I'm going to cut and run? Because you sent me _to kill_ Natasha Romanoff _the murderface spy_ and when I found out she had problems I led her into HQ without handcuffs on. I am not known for my good sense or my ability to walk away." 

Phil regarded him thoughtfully.

"Did you just call Natasha a murderface?" he asked.

"Not the point."

"Clint…"

"Look, I swear to God, I will reassure you later, can I take your pants off now?"

He reached for Phil's belt, and found his wrist caught in Phil's hand.

"Shirt stays on," he said. 

Clint nodded slowly. "Fair enough."

Phil released his wrist and wrapped the arm around his shoulders instead. Clint got his hand between them and unbuckled Phil's belt, fumbled with the fly and tugged everything down in a mess while Phil laughed into his neck.

"Don't help or anything, I got this," Clint drawled, but he unbuckled his uniform pants (with their very uncomfortable built-in cup) and he went skins under, so it was at least a little faster. Phil sounded surprised when Clint got a hand around both of them and stroked just the tips of his fingers up lightly -- a warning before he got down to business. 

Phil was quiet, seemingly by natural inclination, and Clint was conscious that they were in a prefab office with thin walls right down the hall from where their teammates slept. They didn't make much more noise than sharp breaths and muffled words as Clint stroked, hard and a little ruthless, though Phil muttered encouragements once or twice when he slowed down. When Phil rocked into his touch and tensed and kissed him, hard and sharp, Clint swallowed Phil's groan, coming about half a breath after, bright sparks behind his eyes. 

He felt himself slouch, felt his shoulders drop and his head fall forward. He rubbed his nose against Phil's cheek, dopey in the afterglow, and tried not to think about the pants hanging around his thighs or the mess on his right hand. And most of his t-shirt. 

He leaned back just long enough to tug the shirt over his head, cleaning off his hand and stuffing it into a pocket inside-out. Phil's hand came up and hovered appreciatively over his abs. 

"God save me from superheroes," he muttered. Clint flexed. Phil laughed, putting out his hand and resting it squarely on his stomach. Clint leaned into the warmth. 

"I really wish I was disciplined enough to resist doing what we just did," Phil said. 

"It was the shirt, wasn't it?" Clint asked, reaching down to tug his pants up over his hips. "The shirt was the secret weapon."

Phil tilted his head.

"The Captain America shirt?" Clint reminded him. "When I wiped the floor with Ward?" 

"No, that wasn't it. I...have just enough willpower never to have made the first move. I knew I wouldn't have enough to pull back if you did. Came so close...did my best," Phil said. He didn't sound at all sorry. Clint reeled a little while Phil made himself presentable. "I wasn't tempted by what you did. A little annoyed, a little perplexed, not tempted. I have a long experience of not being tempted by you," he said. "Did I like you in the uniform? Yes. Did that snap a very sensible and logical resolve? Please." 

"Nobody gets to Phil Coulson," Clint repeated. "I told Skye that."

"Almost true," Phil said, lifting a hand to rest on the back of his neck. An emotion crossed his face, powerful and fleeting, and he said, "We just had sex on my office desk."

"I'm literally crossing it off my mental bucket list as I speak," Clint replied.

"My team is less than thirty feet away."

"Fast asleep, or piloting the plane." 

"That is not making things less unsettling," Phil said. Clint moved to sit on the desk next to him, then flopped back and stared at the ceiling. He felt a hand on his thigh. 

"Look, I'm not saying we won't be a clusterfuck of unaddressed issues and communication problems," Clint said, waving his hands in the air to illustrate their poor chances of a happy ending. "I'm just saying that we could be dysfunctional _together_ , and at least we'd get smokin' hot sex out of it."

"You just gave me a handjob, with most of our clothes on, in my office," Phil said.

"Never say I'm not a fuckin' romantic," Clint replied. He sat up, rolling off the desk, and stretched. "I'm going to go sleep in Lola, unless your bunk's a double," he said. 

"It is, but I think discretion is going to be one of those topics we talk about when we get a chance to talk," Phil said. 

"Talk, and sex after?" Clint replied, and Phil said "Yeah, that's the plan," before he'd even finished. 

"Yeah," Clint said. "I'll be in Lola if anything happens."

"Sleep well."

"Got a good start," Clint replied, and bent in to kiss him quickly before he took off for the cargo hold. 

***

Phil had never actually been to the school at Westchester, though of course he'd been briefed on it. May had, something about having a friend who consulted there, nothing formal for SHIELD. FitzSimmons and Skye were under orders to stay on the plane; when May set them down on a 'tennis court' that probably shouldn't have been able to hold the plane's weight, they went to the windows to look out. Ward and Clint fell into formation on either side of Quire, Clint going from slouchy, inattentive, and lazy-grinned whenever Coulson looked at him to sharp, professional, and focused in an instant. 

Coulson led the way down the ramp, Quire escorted by Ward and Clint, and they were met at the bottom by a young man in pink-tinted glasses, a woman with white eyes and short white hair, and a man about his own age, bald and slim, in a wheelchair. 

"Professor Xavier," Phil said, offering a hand to the man. 

"Agent Phil Coulson, I believe," the man replied in a deep, pleasant voice. "I understand you've been recruiting for me."

"Something like that. Quentin Quire," Phil said, as Clint held out a flashdrive. "Copy of his file, birth certificate, immunizations. Previous report cards. Some surveillance from SHIELD." 

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Quire," Xavier said. Quire looked like he was ready to spit nails. Xavier grasped his wrist between thumb and forefinger, turning his arm over. Quire started to jerk away and then stopped, perplexed. 

"Omega-level telepaths are very rare," Xavier continued, apparently studying the veins on the insides of Quire's arms. "The joke is that there's only one born per generation."

"Joke?" Clint asked. 

"There are only two known ever to have existed, you see; any prior to 1960 or so are anecdotal, unproven. Mr. Quire here, who I think holds great promise, is the second."

"Who's the first?" Ward asked.

"I am, Agent Ward. There now, you may remove his helmet; I've put a subconscious brake on his powers while he trains at the academy, just to keep him from wreaking too much havoc. Telepathically, anyway. He'll get over it in about, oh, six or seven years. Right around the age of twenty-one, I should say," Xavier said, as Ward unbuckled the helmet. Quire seethed, but nobody got a nosebleed or passed out and nothing exploded, so Phil counted the mission as a success. 

"Thank you, gentlemen; we'll get Quentin settled in and send you an update once he's been sorted out. Good day, Agent Coulson, Agent Ward, Agent Barton."

"So he's a telepath," Ward said, as they retreated into the plane. "Xavier, I mean."

"Yep," Phil answered.

"He can read our minds?"

"He can," Phil said. "He has an ethical obligation not to."

"But he could."

Clint rested a hand on Ward's shoulder. "Grant, I have a hot date tonight. I have a date so smokin' hot I would quit SHIELD if they told me I couldn't go. I promise you, my thoughts in the last ten minutes were way more interesting than yours could possibly have been." 

"Talking," Phil said under his breath as he passed. 

"Hundred percent on board," Clint replied, as the cargo ramp began to close. "Wheels up!" 

***

About six hours later, Clint toppled over onto the hotel bed face-first and grunted a muffled, "You win."

"I wasn't aware it was a competition," Phil replied, but he looked smug when Clint rolled over. 

"No, no, you win sex. All of sex. All of the sex I've had, anyway. You win," Clint mumbled, turning onto his side. Phil pulled him close and Clint went limply, yawning. 

They'd had every intention of talking. They'd left HQ after filing their reports, gone down to a bar Clint knew where they wouldn't be bothered, had a beer each in uncomfortable silence, and then Phil had said "The hotel I usually stay in is about a block away," and Clint had said "Yes," and here they were. 

"We can talk," Clint said, struggling to stay awake. "We can. But."

Phil was smiling his "you can't tell why I'm smiling and it freaks you out" smile. (It was in common rotation.)

"But?" he prompted.

"But I don't really think I need to," Clint said. "My agenda items are one, sex and two, room service, and room service can wait. So I have a radical idea," he managed around a yawn. "Let's not talk about our feelings or our relationship until it becomes absolutely necessary or begins to imperil others."

"Can we do that?"

"That is all I _ever_ do, have you met me?" Clint slid his palms under Phil's shirt, not even thinking about it; Phil twitched and then went very quiet, and Clint stopped moving. 

He'd said fine to keeping the shirt on, though admittedly that was back on the Bus when he'd been trying to climb Phil like a monkey on a tree. He hadn't pushed it when they'd gotten to the hotel because really he didn't care that much how naked they were as long as there was enough naked to get the job done. And he hadn't meant to push it now. 

"Gonna take my hands back slowly," Clint said, in a low voice. Phil took a breath.

"This is ludicrous, isn't it?" he asked, grasping Clint's wrists lightly. 

"No. This is 'you got stabbed and I will deal with that however you like'," Clint said. Phil still had his wrists. "You're not deficient, boss. You're not less. Scars are not negative spaces. And I do not mind the shirt, however long you want to keep it." 

Phil nodded and let go, looking determined. In a quick move he tugged the shirt over his head and sat up, knees to his chest. Clint, still lying down, saw the raised gnarl of skin on his back, the entrance wound. 

"Not talking about feelings, Phil," Clint said. "But I'm having a whole lot of them right now."

Phil was silent. Clint sat up, hand sliding absently over his back, and tugged lightly on his shoulder. Phil uncurled. The scar on his back was one long wound, but on his chest there were two -- a y-shaped one where the upper prong of the spear had exited, and a shallow curve where the lower blade cut. It was brutal, and there was no romanticising that. 

Phil rested the fingertips of one hand along the scar. It looked less like an urge to conceal and more like a compulsive action, something he wasn't aware he did anymore. 

"Just a scar," Clint said. "Nothing missing. Nothing that mattered, anyway." He leaned on Phil's back, kissing his neck. "Let's get some shuteye."

"It won't be easy," Phil said, as he stretched out and let Clint splay all over him. "You're not actually on this team, and I'm out of country a lot."

"Sleeping now. Scheduling later." Clint murmured. After a moment, he said, "I was there. I mean….he got to me too."

"I never forget that. I haven't asked," Phil said. "I didn't want to pry."

"It's startlingly okay, actually," Clint answered. "Natasha's helped a lot, she's been there. I'm talking to a guy at SHIELD." He grinned. "Dating someone new, moving on, you know." 

"Not brooding forever on your tragic backstory?" Phil asked.

"I got tragic backstory coming out my ears, I don't need any more," Clint said. "No. Not brooding. Working through it."

Phil's hand flexed in the small of his back, bringing them together. Clint could get used to the manhandling. He rested his nose in the hollow of Phil's throat, the line of the larger scar a thin presence against his chest. He felt Phil kiss his forehead, and then sleep pulled him down. 

***

"So," Natasha said, as Bruce dealt out the cards. "They are probably literally having sex as we speak."

"I'd be surprised if they've stopped having sex since they got back from Japan," Melinda replied. "They defiled Coulson's desk pretty thoroughly before we got our wheels down." 

"Thank you," Steve told them. "I appreciate hearing that about my boss and my buddy, I really do."

"I'm not sparing your delicate sensibilities," Natasha said. "Some of us have entertaining mental images to construct." 

"It was pretty funny to watch them figure it out," Melinda said. "Could have destabilized the entire team, but I suppose all things in life carry inherent risk." 

"It's a Coulson team," Bruce said. "I'm sure it'd take more than Clint deliberately doing the hip thing to break it apart."

"I did enjoy the hip thing," Melinda murmured.

"We all enjoy the hip thing," Natasha replied. 

"Hip...thing?" Steve asked forlornly.

"It's okay, Steve, you do it too," Natasha replied. 

"I don't do it on purpose! I don't know what it is!"

"Stop teasing the super-soldier," Bruce scolded. "But you do," he added to Steve. "Even Pepper commented on it."

Steve flushed crimson. "Just, just ante up, why don't you."

His phone buzzed, and he took it out of his pocket. There was a text from Clint and another thumbnail photo; this one showed him in a SHIELD t-shirt, arm around Coulson's shoulders. Coulson had his nose pressed to Clint's cheek, shyly affectionate. It _was_ awfully sweet, Steve thought. 

"Captain America gets his man," the text read. 

Steve rubbed his forehead and put his phone away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sam:** In one fic I had Fury considering putting Clint in the Captain America uniform as a figurehead, before they found Cap.  
>  **Foxy:** Like a story where Cap is out of action for a while (he disappears to roam the country or has a delayed personal existential crisis since all his friends are gone) and they put him in the suit now.  
>  **Foxy:** And then Coulson LOSES HIS HIS MIND WITH LUST.


End file.
